There has been another twist in the sports betting battle in Australia with a federal court referring a decision regarding the proposed merger between major operators Tabcorp and Tatts Group back to the Australian Competition Tribunal .
Tabcorp had proposed to acquire Tatts - and the move had been approved by the tribunal - but a protest and legal proceedings were started by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission in conjunction with operator Crown Resorts and the matter was referred to the federal court.
Both had complained that the merger reduced competition in the field of wagering, racing media and gaming.
Following yesterday’s decision to set aside the ACT’s approval and ask it to consider the matter again, ACCC chairman Rod Sims said: “The ACCC is pleased that the full federal court has set aside the decision, however the reasons for the decision are not yet public.
“The ACCC’s application for review was based on three grounds. The first was the tribunal’s reasoning that it could only find that the proposed acquisition was likely to result in a detriment to be considered in the net benefit test if it concluded that there would be a substantial lessening of competition.
“The second grounds were that the tribunal made an error when it failed to compare the likely future state of competition both with and without the proposed acquisition in order to assess competitive detriment,” Sims said.
“Finally, the ACCC argued that the tribunal had made an error in failing to assign less weight to benefits which would be retained by Tabcorp, its shareholders and the racing industry, and not shared with consumers more broadly,” he said.
